Trick Candles
by Liesie
Summary: Naraku hits an evil case of schemer's block and plays a little prank on our favorite incarnation to get the creative juices flowing. Based on a fanart by righteousred on deviantART.


**Discalimer: **_**Inuyasha**_** no mine, blah, blah, Rumiko Takahashi, blah, blah, blah.**

Naraku sat, or rather, hovered, over a low table in one of the castle's various sitting rooms. He was staring at three separate, crudely-drawn doodles. _I'm an evil mastermind, not an artist,_ he thought as he moved his gaze from one to the other. These were all the new schemes he had fathomed in the last week: use Hakudoshi as bait to lure that wolf into the unprotected open, revive and brainwash Inu no Taisho, or create another incarnation with better babysitting skills than Kagura.

His look rested on the amateur sketch of Hakudoshi being beaten to a bloody pulp by that damnable Koga. If it worked, Naraku would be able to kill the flea-bitten canine and claim his jewel shards, severely disheartening Inuyasha and his rabble of irritations. However, what would send most people into a state of desensitized sorrow normally tended to make Inuyasha fight all the more. And past experience had shown Naraku that more often than not his prey finished disposing of the decoy before he could strike. Hakudoshi was too valuable a minion to sacrifice. He made a long slash with his brush through the drawing.

Next was the Inu no Taisho scenario. In the doodle, an enormous dog was seen biting the evil half-demon in half. Naraku had the means to resurrect the late Lord of the West, for sure, but the location did seem to pose a bit of a problem: it wasn't every day he took an excursion to the middle of limbo. A trip of that magnitude took an incredible amount of power, and frankly he was still recuperating from the exertion of doing it the first time. Besides, he found his confidence sorely lacking when it came to his ability to remove the memory of the great dog demon. Sentient Inu no Taisho equals shredded Naraku.

Lastly, he could spawn a new henchman that would take better care of his underage minions. The neglect the wind witch allowed her siblings to undergo was ridiculous; Akago had once been subjected to two hours in a dirty diaper, resulting in three days of rash, two nights of nonstop crying, and thirty-four consecutive migraines. And she couldn't cook at all; that or she was just lazy. Hakudoshi, being the best-performing and therefore favorite incarnation, had been given a birthday party last month. Kagura had been instructed to bake a cake for her little brother's celebration. He had gotten a half-burnt, one-layer, _vanilla_ cake. Vanilla! What little boy in his right mind would settle for a vanilla cake? Not only that, but the witch hadn't even bothered to frost it.

Unfortunately, Naraku was fresh out of ideas for a new minion. He'd already exhausted his creativity making the plan doodles.

He sighed whistfully down at the table and its crude sketches. _I need a vacation, some time to get the malignant juices flowing again._Unfortunately, Inuyasha wouldn't afford him the required respite to think to the full capacity of his evil mind. So, he settled for going down to the bowels of the castle to do some sulking.

That poor chamber: it never saw it coming. You see, when Naraku sulks, he tends to break things. Whether it be a few bottles of useless demon parts and unidentified potions, a magical vase with someone's heart in it (_Whoops, sorry about that, Kagura._), or a chair left over from the fortress's previous owner, he never knows, but something _will_ get smashed. Today, it happened to be the formermost choice.

Sweeping his tentacles angrily over a counter top, its contents hurtled through the air and met the wall with a spectacular "crunch!". Encircling a few sinuous appendages around a flimsy workbench, Naraku swung at a stand of assorted red, green, and yellow fluids until the wooden planks holding the bench together snapped into a shower of splinters that sailed into the dark recesses of the basement. He turned to the single source of illumination in the chamber: a lone candle, cast onto the floor with the vials of liquid, now wading in the wreckage of the collection of solvents, or adhesives, or laxitives, or whatever the hell he had kept on that rack. A tentacle shot out with enough velocity to rival a cracking whip and snapped the flame into oblivion, plunging the room into shadow. However, not two seconds after its murder, the fire returned at full force.

Less curious than irate, Naraku repeated his previous actions and once again destroyed the dungeon's only source of light. When the ember guttered back to life, his will to comprehend things in order to dominate them reared its head, and he took the candle into his hand before blowing, certain that he had snuffed it out completely this time. Before Naraku had even had time to inhale again, the flame was back. _Why you little -- wait a moment. . ._ he thought as the cogs ticked in his head. At last: a plan for someone's misery!

Alright, so maybe "misery" was a little strong; but she would certainly be annoyed, and for now, that was just going to have to be enough for the insidious arachind.

Naraku "ku ku ku"ed under his breath as he put the final amount of lavender frosting on the cake, licking the knife clean before tossing it onto the counter. Carefully, he arranged five candles on the confection's surface and lit them with the tip of a green tentacle.

"Assemble!" he called as he and the baked good moved through the kitchen doors into the main chamber of the ground level.

One by one, Naraku's minions fell into line: Kanna, vacuous as ever, Hakudoshi, an evil little grin on his face (_Like father, like son. I'm so proud.)_, Kohaku, hints of his inner turmoil seeping into his expression, and finally, the guest of honor, Kagura. Resting their eyes upon the purple dessert in his grasp, the group of his "children" shared a unanimous "WTF?" look, with the exception of Kanna, who remained staring into space.

"Today is Kagura's birthday," Naraku stated ominously. "I have prepared a cake." This was met with mingled gasps of horror and a few unrepeatable curses.

"Why the hell did you make _me_ a _cake_?!" his oldest-appearing incarnation cried with wide eyes.

"Just blow out the candles." _I went through a lot of trouble to make that confection. Now, try to blow out the candles so I can relish your pain, dammit!_

When she simply stood there with a confused glare aimed in his direction, Naraku flipped out a tentacle and snatched the vase in which her heart rested. Shaking the pot in front of her face, he said, "Now, now, don't make me use this." He snaked an appendage beneath the container's lid and gave her heart a slight, but forceful, squeeze. Kagura's crimson eyes doubled in size before retracting to slits as her hand clutched at her chest. She cringed in agony, almost hitting her face on the edge of the table upon which the purple confection rested.

"Alright, already! I'll blow out your damn candles."

Smirking, he returned the vase to its shelf alongside the others. "That's what I thought."

Kagura warily bent forward toward the wax sticks, never taking her eyes from her "father", as if at any moment he was going to yell, "Psych!" and send a tenatcle through her chest. Quickly, a strong exhale on her part sent the flame from the candles sailing into dim oblivion. As Kagura straightened to scowl at Naraku, the flames flickered back to life. She cast an annoyed look at the pieces of wax and again snuffed them out. Again, the wicks guttered back to burning glory.

She gritted her teeth and growled out, "What is your problem?" Twice more she attempted to destroy the candles' light, and both times Kagura failed. Naraku snickered, reveling in the brilliant sensation of satisfaction he always got when a plan came together to achieve the desired result. However, when was the last time any of his schemes had actually remained stable beyond that point?

Finally, Kagura's temper got the best of her. With a sharp snap of her wrist, she unfurled the crimson-tipped fan and sent a slew of cresent blades hurtling toward the insidious purple pastry. "Take this, you paraffin bastards!" Cake, candles, and dish cascaded to the wood below, smacking the floor with a resounding slurpy noise. Purple frosting and yellow cake parts splattered the table legs and, inciedntally, Naraku: from his waist down he was plastered with lavender, saffron, and extinguished white candles, their wicks coated in a similar sweet sludge.

Kagura leaned back and smirked at her handiwork. Before she could comment on Naraku's new attire, he muttered, "I'll be in the lab sulking," and hovered away, mouth set in a firm line that easily stated, "Some inanimate objects are going to pay."


End file.
